[biblewonk]

Indeed, I remember Sagan. IMHO, he abused science to authenticate and promote ideology. I see such behavior both within and outside the science community as a huge problem, an abuse of science. Please see my post 2337 for present day examples.

You are so right. "All's fair in love and war". This is war and the lies and tricks and dirty pool played by "scientists" is shameful. The whole conversion of the religion of naturalism into to something other than religion, ie science is quite a nifty trick. People get up off their knees at the alter of evolution insisting they were not just worshipping.

[Right Wing Professor]

Naturalism is not a religion. In fact, I warrant you are a naturalist about 95% of the time, and I'm sure you don't think of yourself as an apostate.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply, but, er, I would never agree that "all's fair in love in war".

My objection concerning the abuse of science is with regard to specific individuals and organizations, not the science community itself. Science attempts to stay neutral by using materialism epistemologically but not metaphysically.

The problem comes in when a rogue such as Peter Singer seizes upon that form of materialism to justify an atrocity such as infanticide. Likewise, when the animal rights activists seize on it to justify equal rights for laboratory mice.

Science specifically tries to keep itself away from religion, but IMHO it has a big problem because it does get abused both from within and from the outside. But the answer is not to enforce an orthodox metaphysics of any kind on the science community, rather, IMHO, the science community needs to be aware of such abuse and do all it can to stop it.